TEC blogs

The remaining weeks till Christmas are bound to be something similar to a madhouse.. and I am god damn serious about that. Even if all kinds of essays and book reports and “arutlused” and million other writing tasks won’t kill us, Christmas will. No, I don’t have anything against Christmas, it is really nice and all but all these choir practises and Volüüm thingies and other concerts are driving me crazy even now. I am really sad that there are only 24 hours a day because I would really need some more. But nevermind, actually it is fun if this Christmas spirit comes. And at the moment the ground is white and it is really really beautiful (for now). Probably by tomorrow it has melt already and there is only..yeah.. well nevermind, I hope for the best that this year we actually do have white Christmas.

Just to get it down on record somewhere, for the next two weeks, post either once per week (300 words minimum) or twice per week (100 words per post minimum, posts on different days of the week).

AND I WILL DO THE SAME. YES.

For a moment, Jerry pondered on what might have been had he NOT fallen while taking a shower.

For a moment, he pondered on methods of disintegrating memory. He pondered on rewinding time.

Memory erase. Electromagnetic pulse. Bullet in the head.

Meanwhile, they had moved another ten feet. Towards what, he could not tell.

Cyb-O exhaled and a thick plume of smoke covered Jerry’s field of vision for a second, then drifted away, towards the surrounding darkness.

‘What you’re thinking is whether you’d be here if this or the other had or hadn’t happened.’

‘Yes.’

‘The answer is this: maybe.’

‘Oh.’

‘What you’re thinking is whether there was some chain of events that somehow came into being as a result of a particular event.’

‘Yes.’

‘The answer is this: no.’

‘Oh. So I’m here because I’m here and there is/was no way of avoiding it.’

‘Pretty much, yes. But you can’t really attribute this to anything, you are here because you are here, there is no reason as such.’

Cyb-O continued.

‘I have observed that the reason for an event is usually the event itself, not the twenty, fifty, or indeed twelve events preceeding it.’

Cyb-o dropped the cigarette and crushed it with his lacquered shoe.

In the distance, things occurred, events shaped themselves into existence, happenings happened. As they always had, as they always will.

And the long journey to hear the final answer began. His whole life ran through his mind and the road to perdition seemed endless. Everyone should stand up to death to feel the happiness of being alive. Jerry was not able to understand the situation, behind closed eyes where he wanted to hide his life, he saw only a tunnel but no light. At one point cyborgs lose the ability to discern some aspects that ordinary people do and instead of the redeeming light million questions came to his head.

“Where does it come from? This quest or this need to solve life’s mysteries, when the simplest of questions can never be answered? Why are we here? What is the soul? Why do we dream? Is it human nature or something else?”

The great Cyb-O stood next to him and an unexpected fright brought Jerry back to reality. He saw light that came from a friction match; the father of all cyborgs had lit a cigarette. In this time they had moved only ten steps; neither of them had asked or talked and the reasoned silence continued.

First, I am terribly sorry for the delay. On Thursday I honestly forgot about the blog, on Friday Elion quit functioning (the only pages I could open were neti, google and orkut) and now I am trying to avoid a total fail..

The cyborg in a morgue, well that is something new, he thought and almost felt like laughing. But it would be inhumane to laugh when you’re surrounded by dead bodies that have not yet been buried and smell like hell. Inhumane, he thought, what an irony. Like he was humane in any sense.

He started to feel bored. He thought of the truck driver who had hit him. He must be in a police station right now, shocked from killing a cyborg. What morons these humans are, they think they can do everything. They think they can kill a cyborg. Now he really laughed, but the voice that came out from his mouth made him stop right away. That kind of sound must have wakened the dead; even a horny seal could not sound worse. He understood that things were really bad with him and he almost wished for a second that he was mortal.

“It kills me to hear you sound like that!” And there he stood, the father of all cyborgs, the great Cyb-O.

“It is time, my son. Your happy days on Earth are over, you must now return to your brothers! First, you shall be fixed and then comes the most important part of your life - the Final Judgement!”

Jerry knew too well what that meant and he was scared. He knew his life on Earth had been a total failure, but will the Father forgive him? Or will he corrode in hell?�

Kari wrote it last night but obviously failed to understand the we-all-post-here part of the task. This is his addition.

“Oh, wait. I’m a cyborg not an android, I have no self-destruct buttons. That also means my limbs are intact, attached and I’m ready for action instead of simply lying about. How silly of me! My mother always told me not to get carried away by the thrill of the moment.”

This moment of self-reflection allowed him to think of what to do next. After such a jolly jog a short bout of rationalization was called for.

“I’m a sensible person. A sensible person who has just strangled his ex. I’ll do what every sensible person would do in my shoes – head to the nearest public house and get wasted.”

And he did; after all Jerry was a sensible person. Somewhere around 4 AM he found that even his technologically enhanced body needed some shut-eye. As a sensible person he ordered one final round, said his goodbyes and stepped out into the cold night oblivious to the dangers it contained. Dangers like muggers, who would relieve him of his change, like aliens who would try to probe him in a way far from sensitive or even large trucks just like the one, which hit him.

Little did he know that his arrival at the local morgue saved the life of an innocent young deer, who would have been hit by the coroner on his way home. Unfortunately she did get hit the next day; however one can only save so many.

All this running had made the cyborg tired. He needed shelter, scrap iron for energy and a good oiling because he felt the machinery inside of him was not running as smoothly as is needed for proper functioning. Jerry wandered around the slums of the city and gradually his twitchy droid leg succumbed to pressure. He could walk no more. The only way forward was to jump on his other barely functioning lower limb. He travelled more about 3 kilometres until he collapsed.

Suddenly he woke in a brown cardboard box. Upon awakening a hobo turned to him and offered a drink:

”Care for a sip?”

Still feeling drowsy he rejected the offer: ”I quit.”

The hobo did not care and emptied the remaining half of the bottle in one go. The drunk homeless man got on his feet, threw the bottle against the wall and gave Jerry a kick in the stomach.

”You are stupid” he said and walked away.

Jerry was in abdominal pain and still could not stand up or move at all. There was only one way to end this nightmare - the self-destruct button. He surely did not want to push the shiny button, but his artificial intelligence thought otherwise. Also slowly he could hear the sirens coming closer and closer in every fraction of a second. He let out a strong cry:  ”Now or never!” and the explosion occured…….

But he could not completley blow himself up. He was lying in a dark narrow alleyway in agony, limbless, just like a failed suicide bomber with all the parts except for his torso and head scattered around him. It could not get any worse or could it ?

Suddenly a stray dog rushed out of nowhere, gave a loud bark and licked his metal torso. Jerry thought:

”What has the world come to ?”

He slumped down right there beside Cheryl. It was all over. All his intentions wre so good and now this. Cheryl is dead and he killed her. For Jerry it was total darkness. He had failed. Jerry was to prove that a cyborg is as good as any human being and he failed. He knew that every minute now he hears the sirens and police will be there and he’ll spend his whole life in jail.

But wait… what if he ran away.. Yes, he thought, this is the only possible way. That way he can start a new life somewhere where no one knows him. A new beginning, a normal life. That was his dream, it still is. There’s no time for hesitating now and Jerry knew it.

So he ran, ran as fast as he could. It seemed to him that someone was chasing him but he did not dare to look back. He heard gasping and it seemed to come closer and closer. He was exhausted but he could not stop, he had to run away to somewhere far away.

Soon he dared to look back. No one there. He was safe. But now another problem occoured. He was alone without money and food and a place to stay…

“Now that was just mean.” said one older gentlemen to the other. They were sitting on a bench couple of feet away and discussing whether Obama’s victory is a good thing or not, but now the hoe-like lady had caught their intention. “ Hey Joe look at that skinny white boy. His face is turning red as my old wife’s umbrella.” Old man named Tom was correct. Jerry literally felt all the blood, that had not run out yet, pulsing in his head. His hands started trembling. His eyes were locked at his ex’s face and he wasn’t able to control himself anymore. “Smoking kills!” said Jerry slowly, emphasizing every syllable and then it happened.

“Jesus, Mary and their black dog spike! The white boy has gone crazy!” said Tom to his companion as they saw Jerry suffocating his ex with the same cigarette-bud. Rage had taken over. Nothing mattered to Jerry, he only needed to have his revenge and after couple of minutes she was dead. Of course it didn’t go all that easy, few guys that were just passing by tried to stop him but he managed to pack quite a decent punch even while he was struggling his ex with the other hand.

And then everything went dark.

“So you are the next caped crusader or what?”

Her sarcastic voice made him turn around and, as faith would have it, he managed to get caught in the hem of his self-made pants, a clear sign he was no seamstress.

Now she resorted to laughing. “Saving a damsel in distress?”

“I am the law.” He stood up and tried to regain as much of his dignity as there was left to save. In an instant he took in her appearance – skirt too short to cover anything, blonde hair (dyed) and a cigarette bud between her fingers.

“What, you never seen a girl work before?”

“Cheryl, what are you doing here?” He sounded tired but she didn’t really care.

She dropped the cigarette and walked to him until their noses were practically touching. “I need money.”

He cringed inwardly. “You spent the alimonies already?”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you don’t give us enough money.”

“Would you at least let me see the children?”

“No. Do you think they would really want to see you?”

She snorted and gave him a half-sorry, half-mocking glance.

“You haven’t even told them what you are. You are a cyborg, for Christ’s sake! You are a freak!” She stressed the final word.

“No!” Time to put an end to this. “I am different but different is not bad. It’s time for a change, Cheryl! Soon everybody will take my cyborgian origin the same as dark skin colour and then you will see what a mistake you made with the divorce.”

He was really proud of himself. “I am a cyborg but it’s OK!”

“Jerry. You’re pathetic.”